BLOGS

Abu Dhabi took the world of green energy by storm last year after having launched the world’s cheapest solar plant. It was the third time in two years that the UAE was breaking the record for producing the cheapest solar power.

But this is hardly the last feather in its cap. Ambitious plans are made for the power sector. “For us, it is not about just breaking world records,” says Othman Al Ali, chief executive officer of the Emirate Water and Electricity Company (EWEC).

“Our mandate is rooted in the need to provide power and water security to the residents of Abu Dhabi through ways that are affordable, sustainable and efficient.”

With enough electricity produced on the eight square kilometre site to power 90,000 homes, the 1.17GW Noor Abu Dhabi is a clear reflection of that mandate. At 2.94 US cents per kilowatt-hour, Noor demonstrates that large-scale renewable energy can compete with fossil fuels, which today typically cost in the range of 4-6 US cents per kWh. With 3.2 million solar panels installed, it is the largest facility of its kind in the world. It is also playing its part in the battle to reduce carbon emissions and address climate change, reducing the Emirate’s CO2 emissions by one million metric tonnes, the equivalent of taking 200,000 cars off the road. But with more than $872mn invested in the Noor solar plant through a combination of debt and equity, this seems to be just the beginning as Abu Dhabi aims higher.

“Our short and medium term priority is to maximise the penetration of renewable energy throughout Abu Dhabi by integrating the best technologies within the industry,” says Ali.

“Technological innovations are now helping to further drive down the cost of solar power generation. This is very important for our long term solar goals.”

The UAE is aiming to increase the contribution of renewable energy in the country to 50% and reduce the carbon footprint through power generation by 70% by 2050, a target that EWEC is aligning itself with.

In July, EWEC announced that it had floated a construction and development tender for a 2GW solar plant on a 20km2 stretch in Abu Dhabi’s Al Dhafra. Successful bidders will hold a 40% interest in the solar plant, with the remaining stake owned by local companies, in line with the Abu Dhabi government's 1998 independent water and power producer policy.

“This will be a very important project once completed in 2023. The tender is currently under evaluation and the winners will be announced soon,” says Ali.

Ali says that all bidders for the Al Dhafra solar plant have added an element of storage in their submissions, which indicates the growing importance of storage technologies in large scale solar deployments. In fact, last year, Abu Dhabi launched the “world’s largest Virtual Battery Plant” by deploying 15 systems of up to 108MW/648MWh Sodium sulfur (NAS) batteries across 10 locations.

Produced by Japan’s NGK Insulators with a total undertaking of 12 x 4MW systems and three 20MW systems, each system is capable of storing energy up to six hours.The NGK CISC 648MWh project will help the emirate load balance across its networks during the daytime, as well as providing up to six hours backup in the case of grid outages. As with many energy storage system projects, it is primarily about reducing the strain on the grid at times of peak demand.

In the next four years, Abu Dhabi is expected to scale up its aggregate renewable energy capacity with up to 9GW of baseload nuclear and solar energy, summing up capacity from concentrated solar power (CSP) and photovoltaic (PV) plants.

Barakah nuclear power plant, which last month received a licence to operate, will add 5.6GW of baseload capacity to Abu Dhabi’s independent power capacity when all four units become fully operational.It is being constructed by a consortium led by Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) at a cost of $24bn and Unit 1 is expected to start commercial operations in 2020.

Ali says that advancements in inverter technology will boost grid stability as more renewable energy plants get connected to the main grid. So far, the future looks bright as Abu Dhabi switches on more solar plants.